“Hey, hey, will someone listen to me!”
“Aren’t you a Chatty Cathy?” Miranda reached down to stroke the cat’s pretty head.
“There’s blood on the saddlebag. Want me to spell it foryou?“Thecat yowled. She vented her frustrations concerning human stupidity.
“My, she is out of sorts.” Cynthia brushed her hands on her pants.
“You’re about as smart as a pig’s blister. “Mrs. Murphy spat in disgust.
“I’ve never seen Mrs. Murphy spit like that.” Miranda involuntarily took a step backward.
The cat whirled around and diumped to the front door. She called over her shoulder, “It’s not chicken blood. It’s human blood, and it’s a couple of days old. If you all would use those pathetic senses of yours, you might even find it yourselves. “She banged on the door. “Let me in, dammit. It’s hot out here.”
Since Harry failed to rush right over, Mrs. Murphy, now in a towering rage, shot around to the back of the post office. She smacked open die kitty door, walked in, and whapped Tucker right on the nose.
“Wake up!”
“Ow. “The dog raised her head, then dropped it. “You are hateful mean.”
“Come outside with me. Now, Tucker. It’s important.”
“More important than sleeping in the air-conditioning?”
Mrs. Murphy whapped her again. Harry noticed. “Murphy, retrieve your patience.”
“You can just shut up too. None of you know bugjuice. You rely on your eyes far too much, and they aren’t that good anyway. Humans are weak, vain, and smelly!”
By now Tucker was on her feet and had shaken herself awake. “Humans can’t help being what they are any more than we can.”
“Come on. “She vanished out die door.
Tucker joined her at the motorcycle. Both Miranda and Cynthia had ducked into the market.
“Here. “The cat pointed.
Tucker lifted her nose. “Oh, yes.”
“Don’t touch the bike, Tucker, it’s scorching.”
“Okay. “The corgi moved closer. Her head was tilted back, her eyes bright and clear, her ears forward. “Human. Definitely human and fading.”
“I say four days.”
“Hard to tell in this heat, but it sure has been a couple of days. It’s only a drop or two. If the saddlebag were soaked, even they’d notice it. The aroma of blood is powerful”
“They don’t like the smell, assuming they can smell it.”
“Ifthere’s enough of it, even they can pick it up. I don’t know why they don’t like it. They eat meat just like we do.”
“Yeah, but they eat broccoli and tomatoes too. Their systems are fussier.” Mrs. Murphy brushed by Tucker. “/trust your nose. I’m glad you came out with me.”
“Have you tried pointing this out to them?”
“Yes. “The cat shrugged. “Same old same old. They’ll never get it.”
“Well, it’s a few drops of blood. No big deal—is it?”
“Tucker, a Hell’s Angel shows up at Ash Lawn, makes a scene asking for a woman named after a town. Blair gets him out of there. Right?”
“Right.”
“Then he sideswipes us as he flies out of Sugar Hollow. And now his motorcycle has been parked in front of the post office for two days.”
Tucker scratched her ear. “Something’s rotten in Denmark.”
9
Actually, something was rotten in Sugar Hollow. A platoon of grade-school hikers on a Wednesday nature trail excursion stumbled upon the remains of a human being. In the high heat the body shimmied with worms.
The stench made the kids’ eyes water and some threw up. Then they ran like the dickens down the hollow to the nearest telephone.
Cynthia Cooper picked up the call. She met Sheriff Rick Shaw at the Sugar Hollow parking lot. The nature camp counselor, a handsome nineteen-year-old named Calvin Lewis, led the sheriff and his deputy to the grisly site.
Cynthia pulled out a handkerchief and put it over her mouth and nose. Rick offered one to Calvin. The young man gratefully took it.
“What will you use?” he asked.
“I’ll hold my nose. Besides, I’ve seen more of this than you’ll ever want to know.” Rick walked over to the corpse.
Cynthia, careful not to touch the body or disturb the scene around it, scanned the blackened mess from end to end.
Then she and Rick walked away from the stench to join Calvin, who wisely had remained at a distance.
“Did you notice anything else when you found die body?” Rick asked. No.
Cynthia scribbled in her notebook. “Mr. Lewis, what about broken branches or a path made by die feet of the body if it was dragged through the underbrush?”
“Nothing like that at all. If we hadn’t been looking for mushrooms—die class is identifying different kinds of mushrooms—I don’t think we would have, uh, found… that. I smelled it and, uh, followed my nose. It was so strong everywhere that at first I couldn’t pinpoint die smell. If I’d known, I would have made the kids stay back. Unfortunately some of them saw him. I didn’t mean them to see it—I would have told them it was a dead deer.”
Rick put his arm around the young man’s shoulders. “Quite a shock. I’m sorry.”
“The kids who saw it—I don’t know what to tell them. They’ll have nightmares for weeks.”
Cynthia spoke, “There are a lot of good therapists in the area, people experienced with helping children through trauma.” What she didn’t say was that most therapists never got this close to raw life or rather, raw death.
After cordoning off the corpse, Rick and Cynthia waited for their team. Calvin rejoined his campers way down at the parking lot.
Rick leaned against a big fiddle oak and lit a cigarette. “Been a long time since I’ve seen something like this. A real worm’s hamburger.”
“Whole back blown away. A .357 Magnum?”
“Bigger.” Rick shook his head. “Had to have made a loud report.”
“People shooting off guns all the time.” Cynthia bummed a cigarette offher boss. “Even if it isn’t hunting season.”
“Yeah. I know.”
“A few more days and I think the animals would have been able to pull the arms off, and die legs too. At least the body is intact.”
“Let’s hope that’s a help.” He spewed out a stream of soothing blue smoke. “You know, diere used to be stills up here. Clear mountain water. Just perfect. Those guys would blow you away pronto. The marijuana growers are more subtle. Here anyway.”
“No still around here—at least, I don’t thinkso.”
He shook his head. “Not anymore, now that Sugar Hollow is public. Ever drink diat stuff?”
“No.”
“I did once. Take your head right off. It’s not called white lightning for nothing.” He glanced over his shoulder at the distant corpse. “Wonder what he got into.”
“Guess we’ll find out.”
“Might take us a while, but you’re right. Whenever there’s a murder I hope it’s an isolated expression of violence and not the start of some, you know…”
She knew he meant a serial killer. To date nothing of the kind had ever happened in their area. “I know. Oh, Christ, here come Diana Robb and the crew. If she sees me smoking, I’m going to get Health Lecture 101.” Cynthia quickly smashed out her butt in the soft earth.
“Would it do any good?”
“Oh, sure it would—until I wanted the next cigarette.”
^o
A damp wind slid down the mountains. Harry jounced and jostled along on Johnny Pop. The manure spreader turned, flinging out wood shavings and manure. The sun seemed pinned to the top of the mountain, the shadows from the line of oaks lengthened. Sunrise and sunset were Harry’s two favorite times of the day. And today the sweet smell of her red clover filled the air, making the sunset seem richer. Harry kept her fields in alfalfa, red clover, and timothy. She usually produced a very good hay crop from this.
The cat and dog slept in the barn. A full day at the post office wore them out. Tucker heard the noise of a heavy truck crunching down the driveway. She jumped up and awakened Mrs. Murphy.